The mobile web browsing experience has become the de facto standard for many smartphone-toting folks. According to Pew Research, one in 10 American adults is a smartphone-only internet user, without traditional broadband access.
With mobile browsing, the browser itself is often modified to make it more conducive to use on a smartphone. Unfortunately, this often makes it difficult to find certain features or tools that one may use when browsing on a desktop.
One such feature is the ability to find text on a webpage. On a standard keyboard, a user can simply type Control + F (Windows) or Command + F (Mac) to find what they’re looking for. On a smartphone, though, it’s not that simple.
SEE: How to improve the security and privacy of your iPhone: 5 steps
Thankfully, the process for finding text on a Safari webpage on an iPhone isn’t terribly complicated. Here’s how to do it on iOS 10.3.2.
Start by opening the Safari application. Look for the icon with a blue compass and tap on it.
Once you have the application open, tap into the grey URL bar at the top of the screen and type in the URL of the website you want to visit. For this example, we’re going to use our favorite website, techrepublic.com. After you’ve entered the URL, tap on the blue Go button at the bottom right corner of the screen.
Once you’ve made it to the website, navigate to the webpage that you want to search. Once there, tap on the share button at the bottom of the screen that looks like a box with an arrow coming out of it. If the button isn’t there, it could be because you’ve scrolled down. Try scrolling back up to the top of the page, and it should show back up.
From here, you should see three rows of icons. On the bottom row of icons (the white and grey ones), swipe to the left until you see the Find on Page icon and tap it.
At this point a grey keyboard with a search bar built into it should appear at the bottom of the screen. Tap in the search bar and then type the word or phrase that you want to search. The tool should then highlight all the instances of it on the page in yellow.
To navigate among the highlighted instances on the page tap the up and down arrows immediately to the left of the search bar.
When you’re finished searching, simply tap the grey Done button to the right of the search bar and the Find on Page tool will disappear.
